Nature veto

Spending a lot of time around Montreal and I see small pieces of nature here and there, usually around highways, near fences, or back in parking lots. These spaces are fleeting because every square meter of Montreal must be developed with sidewalks, concrete containers, parks benches and plenty of interlocking stone bricks. I usually get a few months or years at most to paint such scenes. A perfect example was the Champ-de-Mars station, if you click that blog and scroll down, there was a huge field of wild daisies, incredible like a hillside in Switzerland or something. It didn't last long because the city has been digging up and pouring concrete there for the last five years. Thus, whenever and wherever nature can be found, Montreal has to veto it, and get the bulldozers fired up. 

Nature veto, watercolour 9 x 12" watercolour paper, April 2026

Searching for the green

Heading downtown again, it was still pretty quiet at the end of the long weekend, with slightly better weather than previous days. This underground highway exit is surrounded by a wide grassy area with landscaping, and a dog park off to the left. Since the snow melted, grass is starting to turn a little bit green. You can see a variety of colours in the grassy hillside from light green, to olive green, to dark yellow and shades of brown.  

Underground exit Spring, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, April 2026 

Speaking of green, there were several varieties of green in this scene. Has there ever been more green in a scene? I mean, ask the Dean if they seen a clean bean. Okay so I am not a poet! To make the traffic light green, I started the painting with a lime-green circle (PY154 + PG36), then outlined in black after it dried. Composing big blocks of brown is tricky, so I lightened up the sky and the traffic to cut through the muck. 

Green light green dome, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, April 2026 

The new Canadian Maltage factory has high conveyors covered in tin structures that look like hallways. Capturing that shade of pale green, verging on dark yellow, involved a mix of perylene green (PBk31), indo orange-yellow (PY110), and some carbon black (PBk6) to neutralize. Working in the grey areas is essential when painting Montreal, especially in these between-season times like early Spring when everything is grey and dusty. 

Maltage conveyors, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, April 2026 

An old industrial building, or what remains of one, its just walls being held up by steel supports. The city obviously wanted to preserve the appearance of this very old structure which probably dates back to mid 19th century. A jumbo-sized gear on the outside informs on what was made here in the old days. Iron hamster wheel maybe? Graffiti writers put their signs on the wall, including good old PJD 2026. I am looking forward to Spring flowers and green grass now, although it was still fun to do lots of painting over the long weekend. 

Old wall gear, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, April 2026  

Taunted by rain

Today had intermittent rain showers, however, I managed to get down to the Point st Charles train yard without any rain. When I arrived, it started pouring and I took refuge in a bus shelter until it cleared up a bit and I could get a painting done of the trains and tracks. The earth was a very dark brown which I mixed with burnt umber (PBr7) and indo blue (PB60). 

Train yard rain, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, April 2026 

An old train repair building is being converted into a hipster hangout, they already have a pub, a vegan grocer, a bike repair shop, and a few other community services. In front, there used to be a nice field of grass and wild flowers, but since nature is illegal in Montreal, it was imperative to dig it all up and install concrete and benches everywhere. I'm sure it will look nice when they are finished. 

Hipster construction, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, April 2026 

There are several long berms of earth with grass growing on the empty back-lots. For some reason, the hill in the background was covered in colourful trash. I assume these items could be the remnants of a tent encampment since there were tarps, mattresses, and all manner of fabrics strewn about. As an artist I was drawn to this subject like a moth to a flame. The colourful accents really popped off against a grey and brown surrounding. A few orange construction signs and pylons completed the scene. I did one more painting by the Lachine canal but the rain started up again and I had to abandon ship. 

Colourful hill, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, April 2026 

 

Mid season weather, fart wall

The other day I painted two scenes here, but wanted to try the whole thing on a larger piece of paper so I brought along some 8 x 10" today. With warmer weather and fresh (no salt) water its possible to scale up and add more detail than is possible during winter. I like how the car tail lights and traffic lights shine though the shadows, and all the texture in the background. 

Turcot overpass vista, watercolour 8 x 10" cold press, April 2026

Last year the city finally solved the bottleneck problem here... all pedestrians and bikes had to use the same path (on the left) going in both directions and it was pretty unsafe. Now, the west bound bikes and people take the right path, eastbound takes the left path. Although some folks still don't get it, and go the wrong way! The letters on the left were ZO (Zonek), but I changed to PD. In fact, ZO painted over his own TOS that used to be there, it stood for Take Over Squad, but the graffiti people retired this moniker and use BTH now. TOS was meant to 'take over' the even older VC (vicious crew), but a few years ago they merged into one super-group. I speculate all this based on following the writing on the wall for the last 15 20 years or so. The canal on the right, its still mostly frozen. 

Split path canal, watercolour 8 x 10" cold press, April 2026 

Speaking of graffiti, someone wrote FART on this old stone and concrete wall. There is an old iron tube embedded in the wall that is heavily rusted, it looked like poop. So you have the fart and poop wall. I almost didn't sign this painting, like, who else would paint a scene like this? 

Fart wall, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, April 2026 

Standing in a big open parking lot, here is a scene of the Canadiens arena, they are doing pretty good this year but I don't follow hockey much anymore. A tree was growing in the parking lot... I hope they can do something positive with the space and not just build another glass skyscraper. 

Tree Habs parking lot, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, April 2026 

Part of the Bonadventure station, you see a rail platform in the background behind these trees. I am standing in the same empty parking lot as the previous painting. Of course I changed the billboard to my initials, and some other nonsense on the right billboard. Cars were zooming along st Antoine. Although there was no precipitation today, there was a bitterly cold wind. 

Billboard rail station, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, April 2026 

 

 

Feels a bit like Spring

With temperatures as high as 17℃, it was starting to feel a bit more like Spring. I could even paint outside without wearing gloves for the first time in awhile. This scene is standing on the sharp ridge behind the Glen Hospital looking due south towards st Henri. You can tell by the pink house on top of the old Maltage factory next to the Lachine canal. In the foreground is a highway overpass and part of an off ramp. 

Turcot horizontal pink house, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, April 2026 

There wasn't enough space to get the whole scene down, so I did a second painting composing the foreground elements, along with a compressed mid and background. On the top left is a distant mountain, probably Mount st Hillaire. Mount Sutton is also possible, not sure. The sky was an interesting contrast of dark purple with pastel yellow and orange. I had to paint fast today since it seemed like rain was coming.  

Turcot vertical overpass, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, April 2026 

It never did rain luckily, and by the time I got home the sun was shining. This scene shows part of the Lachine canal where they took out the concrete wall and opened it up to grass wetland, with trees planted. Birds love it here and I could hear red-winged blackbirds chirping away. They live all up and down the shore of the canal and river. 

Melting canal pine trees, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, April 2026

The good old rusty water tower, now an iconic landmark in this part of Montreal. Technically, this neighborhood, south of the canal but north of the aqueduct, is called 'South West'. Its a rapidly gentrifying hipster paradise where you can still live in a converted factory loft, and walk down the street to get craft beer or craft whiskey. Unfortunately the st Armand paper maker, which was in the building you see off the right of the painting, had to move. I stocked up, and met the owners, before they left. 

Water tower melting canal, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, April 2026  

One last quick painting... where there used to be a condo complex, there is now a wide empty sand lot. It looked like the beach in Brazil that we visited, minus the palm trees, and minus the ocean! I'll try to get a better painting of the scene before they build on it, this painting did not quite turn out the way I had in mind. You never know. When I went out earlier in the week on a drizzly day, I was sure that all the paintings would be awful, and there I stood in the drizzle painting the Molson brewery... somebody stopped that day and complimented my painting... then when I saw the painting at home it was amazing, and Cilei loved it so much we put it in a frame and hung it in the place of honour, the bathroom! If you click on the link you will see the painting I am talking about. Point is, I never know when the next masterpiece will occur, its a matter of keep trying. 

Elmhurst beach, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, April 2026 

Hue Knows?

Starting off with the central yellow brushstroke, the rest of the composition worked around that element to create a playful mosaic. It was also a so-called 'palette cleanser' which is where I clean the paint blobs on my palette with a paint brush and use the extra colours for a painting instead of just running my palette under the sink tap which wastes a bit of paint. Some artists only use watercolour freshly squeezed from the tube, which makes the paint a bit more potent and thick, but its not practical to do this on location. I am so used to letting the paint blobs dry, and then re-activate with a moist brush when needed. Whatever works! I did a quarterly count of paintings, and I am up to about 162 at the end of March, so a little over 50 per month. I feel like its a high number considering that most of them were on location, some in Brazil. Usually its harder to paint in the winter and I do studio stuff, but to be honest I do not find studio painting very fun in comparison to location painting. These abstracts are all done in studio. By the way, the studio is actually half of our dining room table, I have a grey cloth tablecloth folded over half the table and use it to paint and put all my paint stuff after a painting excursion. 

Hue Knows? watercolour 9 x 6" watercolour paper, April 2026 

Ice chunks, goose, rusty bridge

With the bike path fully open I could make my way down to the end of Lachine park, and found this great view of ice chunks piled up on the shore line. It reminded me of a painting I did of Iceland, as part of my World Inspired Landscapes series. In real life, the ice had a most excellent blue-green tint which seemed to glow against the otherwise gloomy brown and grey background of st lawrence river and south shore. Of course, I used phthalo green (PG7) and phthalo blue (PB15) along with perylene green (PBk31) for the ice, and tints of yellow (PY154). 

Blue-green ice chunks, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, April 2026 

Geese were flapping about and floating near the shore expectantly, looking for handouts no doubt. I will have to practice painting geese again its been awhile. We have plenty of them, they fly up here to spend the Spring, Summer, and Autumn. 

Goose icy shore, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, April 2026 

The sun was still high in the sky although going down fast... it was a neat effect of backlighting on piles of ice chunks, a pastel mixture of green, pink, yellow and pale blue. To create the sun-beam reflection effect, I applied clean water and dabbed with a clean rag (cut up shirt). I cut up my old white T shirts after they have had the biscuit and they graduate to being paint rags. 

Backlit ice chunks, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, April 2026 

I've painted this train bridge many times from various angles. Today I cropped the main support post which is made of stone, and featured the iron-oxide rust using yellow ochre (PY43) and burnt ochre (PR101). Most of the canal is still covered in ice, although big patches of it are getting thin and showing water. 

Rusty train bridge, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, April 2026